I Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to athletic garments of the type for differentially cooling various muscles of the athlete, and more particularly to a sleeve and skirt section attached thereto for maintaining body heat in the arm and the adjacent shoulder muscles of a baseball pitcher.
II Description of the Prior Art
The popularity of baseball as a major American sport, both at the amateur and professional levels, has placed substantial importance upon the peak performance of an athlete engaged in this sport. Pitchers are especially prone to injuries of the type commonly referred to as "sore arms" which are typically caused by over-exertion together with improper heating and cooling cycles of the arm muscles. Given the high skill and experience levels required to make a good pitcher, it is extremely important that every effort be made in order to eliminate as many factors as possible which contribute to "sore arms".
It is well known to both participants and fans of the sport of baseball that pitchers frequently put on jackets while in the dugout in order to maintain body heat within the pitching muscles. This retention of body heat in the arm and shoulder muscles will tend to keep the pitching muscles loose between innings and therefore will tend to reduce muscle cramps and muscle tightening. This practice is common for pitchers even during warm weather since it is more important to maintain body heat within the pitching muscles than to promote general body cooling. However, it is more desirable to differentially cool the body by maintaining body heat in the arm and shoulder muscles of the throwing arm while also allowing normal dissipation of body heat from other body areas. This is often accomplished by merely inserting the pitching arm into the shoulder of the jacket, while allowing the remainder of the jacket to hang from the shoulder of the player. While this may be satisfactory when the pitcher is merely sitting on the bench, it is not satisfactory when the pitcher is warming up for his turn at bat, when batting or when running the bases. Furthermore, the insertion of the arm into only the arm of the jacket will not retain body heat in the chest and back muscles which are involved in the throwing motions.
While this problem has been apparent for many generations of baseball players, the present inventor is unaware of any suitable solutions to the aforementioned problem. Some inventors have approached the problem of differential cooling of the torso and arm sections of the body, but the resulting inventions uniformly attempt to maintain body heat in the torso area while dissipating heat from the arms and other body appendages.
For example, Jones in U.S. Pat. No. 4,006,495, discloses a coat which employs semi-detachable sleeves and pocket means for receiving the sleeves in their semi-detached condition. This garment is primarily designed as a hunting jacket for maintaining body heat in the torso area of the athlete, while providing for maximum flexibility of the arms by removing the sleeves therefrom. The sleeves are removably coupled to the main torso section of the jacket through the use of several strips of VELCRO (trademark) fasteners. These Velcro-type fasteners comprise a plurality of small hooks which removably couple with a plurality of loops woven into a separate section of the coupling pieces.
Shuster, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,122,873, discloses a jacket-type garment which employs a linear zipper for removably coupling the sleeves to the torso or main section of the jacket. As with the Jones device described above, both of these jacket garments are designed to maintain body heat within the torso of the athlete and to dissipate body heat from the arms and other appendages. This teaching is entirely contrary to the concept of the present garment which is designed to maintain body heat within the arm and shoulder muscles involved in pitching a baseball and to dissipate body heat from the main torso section.
Other torso garments which employ removable sleeves have been disclosed by Fierst in U.S. Pat. No. 3,378,853, Marthinsson in U.S. Pat. No. 3,380,075, Rosenberg in U.S. Pat. No. 3,154,790, Agostini in U.S. Pat. No. 3,024,466, Cornet in U.S. Pat. No. 2,690,565, Wolfson in U.S. Pat. No. 2,308,411, Bonoff in U.S. Pat. No. 1,155,544, and Nichols in U.S. Pat. No. 1,149,674. None of these references teach the use of a sleeve and skirt of the type which may be used by baseball players or other athletes for maintaining body heat in the arm and shoulder area while allowing for normal dissipation of body heat from the torso and other appendages.